Peninsula jewelry a hit with Liz Taylor

English native Jackie Jones creates bold, eye-catching designs comprising semiprecious stones and silver. In the past year, she has sold about two dozen of her necklaces to Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor, who knows a thing or two about jewelry. Taylor herself bought them from a Beverly Hills store.

Lea Suzuki/Chronicle

Jewelry maker Jackie Jones at her Fremont showroom.

Courtesy Jackie Jones

Turquoise, amethyst, and chalcedony are the backdrop to three carved flowers in lilac jade.

“This particular store had only ever bought my more moderately sized pieces,” says Jones, 49, who is based in San Mateo. All the same, last fall she showed the buyer and sales staff an extravagant multi-strand necklace of turquoise banded with gold pearls for about $320. “They said, ‘Oh, it’s too big for our customer,'” Jones recalls. “So I said to them, ‘This is a real Cleopatra necklace; you should just give it a try.’ “

In October, Jones, who sells 6,000 necklaces a year, got a call from the store saying that Taylor had bought a necklace. (No guesses as to which one.) Between then and Thanksgiving, Taylor bought 14 others, leaving the vitrines empty and the store calling Jones in desperation for replacement jewels. In January, Taylor bought more; and in March, when Jones had gathered up her pieces from the boutique for a sales meeting elsewhere, outside the store, Taylor reappeared, asking why there were no necklaces and when more would come in. (She bought $3,500 worth of handbags instead.)

“It has all been so exciting,” says Jones, who began her jewelry design career in 2002 after a career in high-tech marketing in Silicon Valley. In the Bay Area, her designs can be found at manya plethora of shops, including the San Francisco Ballet store and Mara in Novato.

“I’ve always loved bold accessories, even when they weren’t in fashion,” Jones says.

Read about more local jewelry designers and trends in this month’s SFiS, available at newsstands and on SFGate.com.